One burning question for each NFL team
By John Buhler
When something burns, it probably doesn’t feel all that good. Here’s one question each NFL team has to be asking internally before next season begins.
The NFL regular season is still a few months away, but the NFL has done a better job than any other professional sports league of staying relevant 24/7. Football fans are rabid and they definitely enjoy watching dudes run 40 yards in a straight line in their underwear because they could might be on your favorite team this fall or help you out in fantasy football if they play for a rival.
Any way, we’re at that part of the year where people go on vacation and sports go on the back burner as it starts to get really hot outside. That being said, there is that one burning question about your favorite football team that just isn’t going away. It keeps scratching that back part of your brain and it has probably kept you awake at night at some point.
For every NFL team, there is at least one burning question. Here is one for each club that won’t be resolved until the season starts. Until then, let it burn in your mind for the next 100 days.
Arizona Cardinals: Has the Super Bowl window closed?
The first two years of the Bruce Arians era in the Valley of the Sun were spectacular. The Arizona Cardinals went a combined 24-8 and played in the 2015 NFC Championship Game. Since getting blown out on the road in Charlotte to the Carolina Panthers, Arizona didn’t exactly recover.
The Cardinals went a lackluster 7-8-1 in 2016, missing the NFC Playoffs for the first time in three years. While the ground game was electric behind star running back David Johnson, franchise quarterback Carson Palmer started to look also-ran. Palmer may have played his best year of NFL ball in 2015, but he now looks one injury away from it being a career.
Arizona may have elite personnel defensively in the form of cornerback Patrick Peterson, defensive back Tyrann Mathieu and outside linebacker Chandler Jones, but the Robert Nkemdiche pick didn’t pan out last year and both defensive end Calais Campbell and safety Tony Jefferson signed elsewhere in unrestricted free agency.
Though Arizona is well-coached, seems to hit more than miss in drafts, and should be in line to contend for a playoff berth in 2017, has the Super Bowl window already closed on Phoenix’s professional football team? There may be a slight crack in the metaphorical window should Johnson be an MVP candidate at tailback, but it’s hard to see Arizona winning multiple playoff games this winter should the Cardinals even qualify.